Bridge drain for showers

ABSTRACT

A bridge drain for a shower floor consists of two or more bridge support drains supporting cantilevers joined at their distal ends by a bridge deck supporting an overlying drain grate optionally accommodating tiles. The box of a linear drain is replace by a drainage surface floor below the surface of the shower floor, bounded by built up areas of the shower floor and any walls, and drained by the point drains provided by the bridge support drains. Advantages include provision of drainage to the very edge of shower entrances, increased flexibility of installation through only having to install point drains instead of box drain troughs, and increased flexibility of provision of an infinite variety of polygonal perimeter drains to ensure thorough drainage from the shower floor.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

No cross reference is made to other applications.

STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OF DEVELOPMENT

No Federal Government support was received in the development of this Invention.

SEQUENCE LISTING, TABLE, OR COMPUTER PROGRAM LISTING

No sequence listing, table, or computer program is attached or accompanies this application.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This Invention relates generally to bathing area fittings connecting to pipes, and more particularly to drainage of showers fitted with a tile pan.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

A shower drain fitting refers to an assembly of parts that are attached to a hole or holes in a shower pan to effect attachment to drainage piping leading away from the shower and to a sewer or other drainage destination. A shower pan can be a pre-manufactured dish perforated by a drainage hole, or a tile pan consisting of an assembly of liners, surface treatments, packing and other materials that function to present a waterproof shower floor surface that is appropriately sloped to direct drainage water from the shower floor to the drainage hole. The Invention in this application is designed to be installed in tile pans. A shower drain can be a point drain consisting of a simple appurtenance to a drain pipe end, said appurtenance which attaches to the drainage hole in the shower floor, or a linear drain, commonly consisting of a box with an upper grate and containing a hole in the base of the box again attached to a drain pipe end, or a polygonal drain, commonly consisting of a polygonal box with an upper grate and containing a hole in the base of the box again attached to a drain pipe end. Linear and polygonal drains are also called perimeter drains in that an area of the floor space is bounded by such drains in concert with vertical barriers to force shower water to egress down the drain pipe serving the shower space. Said vertical barriers may be walls or built up, sloped portion of the tiled floor. A grate refers to the topmost horizontal portion of a drain through or around which water egresses the shower floor and finds ingress into the drainage fitting. A grate may be a perforated horizontal surface or a support for tiles incorporating a means for ingress of water into the drain. The shower floor refers generally to the surface upon which the shower user stands, the sub-floor to the undermost wood deck comprising a horizontal sheet of plywood supported by joists, a membrane refers to an water resistant flexible sheet upon which or under which sloping support material is applied. The upper surface of the floor is finished with a flooring material such as tile. Other layers of adhesive or sealant occur in a variety of arrangements. A shoe refers to a drainage part sealed beneath the drainage hole in the shower pan, the shoe itself presenting an upper flanged pipe concentric with the drainage hole, said flanged pipe leading to one or more egresses decorated with hubs to which drainage pipe is attached. Unique to this Invention is a new concept, the drain surface floor, which consists of the flat surface beneath the grates, surrounding the two or more point drains, and bounded by built up portions of the shower floor sloped to drain to this drain surface floor and any walls of the shower cubical itself. The drain surface floor provides a boxlike receptacle for drainage of shower water beneath the grates, without having to install a box. It can be surfaced with any water resistant layering assembly but, since it is largely obscured by the overlying grates, it can be more simply sealed than the decorative tile surface above.

In this Invention called the bridge drain, the simplicity and economy of installation of the point drain compared with box drains is employed by providing point drains supporting an said grate using bridge engineering components including the supports, cantilevers attached to the supports, and decks running between the extremes of the two cantilevers to form a bridge. Said grate can be supported to said deck using a plurality of attachment methods.

Through the provision of two supports, a linear drain can be provided without the expense and difficulty of installation of an underlying box. Further, a plurality of linear drains can be supported from one support, enabling a range of polygonal linear drains and corners to be achieved. Further, without end of a linear drain box abutting a wall, installation of a bridge drain will allow for a gap between the wall and the grate that is unobstructed down to the drain surface floor. Sloping of the drain surface floor beneath the grate is also less critical since the drainage water will flow out one drain or the other if there is a slight departure from the horizontal in the drain surface floor beneath the grate, providing the drainage surface floor is at least planar. Accordingly the Invention described in this application is important to provide for new flexibility and economy in the installation of perimeter drains in a shower space.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Accordingly, it is an objection of this invention to at least partially overcome some of the disadvantages of the prior art.

The Invention, a bridge drain as described in this application is a drainage fitting attached to one or more drain holes in said shower pan, comprising a drainage shoe sealed to the underside of said subfloor, a flanged externally threaded pipe threading through the shower pan drainage hole and threading directly into the internal threads of the underlying drainage shoe. The upper portion of said flanged externally threaded pipe comprises a round pipe perforated for drainage from the drain surface floor, said round pipe also providing support for one or more cantilevers. The distal ends of said cantilevers are decorated with attachment devices to support a complementary deck between said cantilevers. Just as a bridge in transport may require more than one support to span a given length, a plurality of supports may support a plurality of decks in either collinear or polygonal fashion. Any polygon of more than four sides composed of bridge drains on all sides may be constructed, and the polygon need not be regular. Partial polygonal constructions may work in concert with other vertical barriers such as walls in a similar fashion hitherto unobtainable with box drains.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In the drawings, which illustrate embodiments of the invention:

FIG. 1 shows an isometric view of the bridge drain installed in a tile shower in three positions: entrance and two sides;

FIG. 2 shows an isometric view of the bridge drain installed in a tile shower in three positions, with tile trays removed;

FIG. 3 shows a front view of the bridge drain showing two supports, two cantilevers, and a supported bridge deck;

FIG. 4 (a) shows a top view of a shower install of the bridge drain, (b) shows a cross-section of the bridge drain, and (c) shows a detail of the bridge drain support.

FIG. 5 shows an isometric view of the bridge drain support;

FIG. 6 (a) shows a top view of the derivative one support version of the bridge drain, and (b) shows a cross section showing a height adjustable pipe.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The Invention described in this application is novel drain fitting for a plurality of the water fixtures known as shower pans. Three bridge drains are illustrated in FIG. 1 to form an incomplete polygon. Walls 1 also bound the installation. The uppermost surface of the shower floor is decorated with tiles 2. The bridge drain allows for aesthetically pleasing gaps 3 in the floor to drain the water. The drain support consists of a flanged threaded pipe 4 threaded into a shoe sealed beneath the subfloor, attached by a drain pipe 6 to a second drainage shoe 7 with two hubs to which is attached a further drainage hub. Note that each support can drain to its own one-hub shoe and to the sewer separately. Note that the drainage hubs on the shoes can also be vertical without affecting the bridge drain support structure.

In FIG. 2 the same isometric view of the bridge drains is given, but with the grates (in this case tile supports) removed to see the structure of the bridge drains. The bridge deck 9 is supported at each end by a cantilever 11 fitting over the upper portion of the perforated round pipe emanating from the upper surface of the flange of the flanged externally threaded pipe 4 threaded into the internally threaded drainage shoe 5 sealed beneath and concentric to the drainage hole in the shower pan. The deck is secured at either end to the cantilevers by a plurality of devices 10. Devices on the cantilever 12 allow for removable attachment to the flanged threaded pipe 4. Water drains through the central hole 13 into the internal cavity of the drainage shoe 5 with gravity egress to a drainage pipe 6 in this case attached two a further drainage shoe with two hubs and to the drainage system beyond through pipe 8. Traps and other commonly occurring appurtenances of the sewer systems are not shown.

The bridge drain is shown in front view in FIG. 3 showing the same flanged externally threaded pipe with an upper pipe with perforations emanating from the upper surface of the flange to form part 4, the underlying drainage shoe 5 leading to drainage pipe 6 leading to a further drainage shoe 7 on a second bridge support leading to the drainage pipe 8 and beyond. The connection between the two drainage shoes is not necessary to the function of the drains—if space permits separate piping to the sanitary drain is equally permissible. The cantilever 11 is seen to fit over the upper pipe of 4 by means of a partial hub not exceeding 90 degrees of the pipe circumference. The bridge deck piece 9 runs between the two cantilevers.

The isometric drawing in FIG. 5 provides details for the bridge support 4. Perforations 14 in the upper pipe 30 provide drainage. An annular compressible sealing ring 24 protects the cut edge of the wood deck hole from any water ingress. Said sealing ring 24 coincides on its lower surface with a gasket 22 sealing the upper flange of the drainage shoe 23 to the underside of the subfloor when fitted. A drainage hub 29 is in this drawing presented in the horizontal, but may also be vertically beneath the shower drain hole. One or more drainage hubs 28 with pipe stops 27 may be provided to connect securely with commonly available drainage pipe.

FIG. 6(a) is a top view of the case of just one support, supporting a single tile in a tile floor. Here the cantilever is extended 360 degrees to form a support of any shape, here, square. FIG. 6(b) is a cross section of this drain. Starting at the top, a tile 40 is supported by a plurality of devices, in this case posts 41, above the upper surface of the tile tray 42 to allow for drainage into the pipe 46. Said tile tray 42 is attached to the drainage pipe using a plurality of attachment devices, in this case a hub 43. Said pipe 46 can be adjusted to accommodate flooring material including tile and support material in the vertical gap 54. Said pipe 46 is fitted to a hub 47 in a fitting 48 otherwise comprising a flanged externally threaded pipe 52, and said fitting 48 threads through a hole in a membrane or other water impervious layer 49, through a concentric hole in the wood deck 50, into an internally threaded drainage shoe whose upper flange 51 seals against the underside of said wood deck 50 using a plurality of seal devices including silicon and gaskets, again to protect ingress of drainage water into the plywood. Weeping channels are provided in the underside of the flange 51 of the shoe for those installations where the membrane underlies the sloped supporting material under the tiles. In such installations, water creeps through the support and egresses through the weeping channels and thread mate into the drainage system. Since this is a shower, all internal diameters of this drain are sized such that drainage water will never rise so far off the drainage floor 53 as to reach the thread mate and egress back out the weeping holes.

The following Claims are made about the bridge drain Invention described in this application for use in draining water drained from a bathing area surface: 

1. A bridge drain fitting comprising: two or more support point drains installed each in a hole in the drain surface floor in a lower cavity in the shower installation bounded by vertical barriers to water flow comprised by walls and built up portions of the shower floor the upper surfaces of said shower floor being sloped to drain to the lower drain surface floor and egress by gravity via the support point drains to the drainage system. supporting cantilevers fitted to the top of said supports. a bridge deck to support a grate of equal height to adjacent built up portions of the shower floor attached to the distal ends of two adjacent cantilevers.
 2. A water diverter fitting as claimed in claim 1 wherein the deck portion may be adjusted in length to accommodate a variety of bridge spans between the two point drains.
 3. A derivative water diverter fitting as claimed in claim 1 wherein said a single support supports a single grate to an equal height of the adjacent built up portions of the shower floor by cutting to length of a pipe connecting the drain and the grate. 